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Spain Crisis


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spain won fifa world cup 2010 and euro 2012, and is spain now growing? No

all the companies who are mentioned in the video are succesful, and also their earnings is from outside spain.

well, the video can be helpfull to know that everything from spain is too bad at all, but the same is helpless for get out from the crisis.

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I have no idea on what's the status of Catalonia's Independence... Any news? or can anybody explain better how is that going on?

There's the idea of a possible referendum in the near future, but since the current central government doesn't support it, it would be illegal, so it's actually more difficult than it seems.

The President of Catalonia, Artur Mas, didn't support independence until some months ago, and so he decided to bring forward the elections (which should have been in 2014 if I'm not wrong) to a week ago. It is said that the only thing he really wanted was absolute majority, because the word "independence" was never mentioned in his electoral programme and every time he appeared on TV he didn't defend a "traditional independence" but something more modern in which the Catalonian ties with Spain wouldn't be broken... Well, he won the elections, but instead of getting the absolute majority his party has lost seats, and now neither the pro-independence nor the anti-independence parties trust him enough to reach an agreement and create the new government.

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There's the idea of a possible referendum in the near future, but since the current central government doesn't support it, it would be illegal, so it's actually more difficult than it seems.

The President of Catalonia, Artur Mas, didn't support independence until some months ago, and so he decided to bring forward the elections (which should have been in 2014 if I'm not wrong) to a week ago. It is said that the only thing he really wanted was absolute majority, because the word "independence" was never mentioned in his electoral programme and every time he appeared on TV he didn't defend a "traditional independence" but something more modern in which the Catalonian ties with Spain wouldn't be broken... Well, he won the elections, but instead of getting the absolute majority his party has lost seats, and now neither the pro-independence nor the anti-independence parties trust him enough to reach an agreement and create the new government.

I am interested in this topic. What percentage chance does Catalonia have at independence.

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I am interested in this topic. What percentage chance does Catalonia have at independence.

That's hard to say. Since the Spanish government doesn't want any kind of referendum, it's impossible to know how many people support independence accurately. According to recent surveys, the large majority of Catalans would like the referendum to be held, but then those who would vote for and those who would vote against independence are almost fifty-fifty. If anything, there's slightly more support for independence, but not really significant figures. And there has also appeared a third option lately which is making Spain a federal state, so regions would have almost total autonomy without having to become independent, but I don't know how many people support this.

Anyway, even if the referendum was to be held following Artur Mas plans, it would be difficult to know what people would have voted for because he does not plan to ask about "independence from Spain" but about "Catalonia as a new state in the European Union", which is a very ambiguous question.

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Athan. thanks for an informative post. The information here in the English press is slightly coloured, often with distaste for Rajoy, because he has been difficult about Gibraltar *lol*.

The British media seem to want to tie in Catalunya with Scotland, and the comparison isn't a good one, mainly because Artur Mas is an opportunist, whereas the Scottish Nationalist Party has wanted independence since the 1970s.

It is interesting that the Spanish government can prevent a referendum. The British government realised it could not and surveys suggest the majority of English people now favour an independent Scotland.

i wonder if this will affect the IOC members' preferences - I guess it depends on how things develop. Certainly riots and demonstrations would not be good press.

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Thank you for the info Athan :D, I have a friend in Barcelona and he's 100% supporting independce, perhaps most people in Catalonia may want it, though it maybe bizzare since its unkown the future on Catalonia as a new country in almost evety aspect... Any ways I see a lot of Independence-supportes in Barca's games :lol:

Athan. thanks for an informative post. The information here in the English press is slightly coloured, often with distaste for Rajoy, because he has been difficult about Gibraltar *lol*.

The British media seem to want to tie in Catalunya with Scotland, and the comparison isn't a good one, mainly because Artur Mas is an opportunist, whereas the Scottish Nationalist Party has wanted independence since the 1970s.

It is interesting that the Spanish government can prevent a referendum. The British government realised it could not and surveys suggest the majority of English people now favour an independent Scotland.

i wonder if this will affect the IOC members' preferences - I guess it depends on how things develop. Certainly riots and demonstrations would not be good press.

Those are two different scenarios, WAY DIFFERENT... As for Scottland I think the independence might be a great option! And there's already a planned referendum in 2014 I guess
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Athan. thanks for an informative post. The information here in the English press is slightly coloured, often with distaste for Rajoy, because he has been difficult about Gibraltar *lol*.

The British media seem to want to tie in Catalunya with Scotland, and the comparison isn't a good one, mainly because Artur Mas is an opportunist, whereas the Scottish Nationalist Party has wanted independence since the 1970s.

It is interesting that the Spanish government can prevent a referendum. The British government realised it could not and surveys suggest the majority of English people now favour an independent Scotland.

i wonder if this will affect the IOC members' preferences - I guess it depends on how things develop. Certainly riots and demonstrations would not be good press.

You're welcome! ^_^ Catalonia is actually a really interesting topic to debate, not to mention Gibraltar... :lol:

Well, that's it. There have always been nationalist parties in Catalonia, but Artur Mas's Convergència i Unió is definitely not one of them. In fact, until he suddenly started supporting independence, CiU had reached a lot of agreements with the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy's party, which is completely against independence. It has also been said that this is just a smoke screen so that we won't talk about the crisis, the austerity measures, the political corruption... and yes, I can believe that.

However, it's not that CiU's pro-independence campaign has been useless. The nationalist party Esquerra Republicana has doubled their seats, but surely the elections didn't go the way Mas wanted, and now it's being impossible for him to find support from other groups.

I can feel that every time there are more non-Catalan Spaniards that support Catalonian independence because people are getting tired of this, but I think the majority still doesn't want an independent Catalonia.

I don't know it this is affecting the IOC. Barcelona is included as football host city in Madrid's bid. If Catalonia became independent by 2020 and Madrid had been chosen by the IOC, there would be two host NOCs. Or ultimately, it could also be possible that Catalonia proclaimed a unilateral independence, like Kosovo for example, and in this case they wouldn't have an own NOC but would be hosting the Games... Wow, I hadn't think about that before...!

(In any case, we've seen Madrid is having no problems to do venue changes, so one more change wouldn't even be noticeable... :P)

Thank you for the info Athan :D, I have a friend in Barcelona and he's 100% supporting independce, perhaps most people in Catalonia may want it, though it maybe bizzare since its unkown the future on Catalonia as a new country in almost evety aspect... Any ways I see a lot of Independence-supportes in Barca's games :lol:

Those are two different scenarios, WAY DIFFERENT... As for Scottland I think the independence might be a great option! And there's already a planned referendum in 2014 I guess

That's the biggest flaw in Artur Mas's independence plans. It seems that they have never really thought about Catalonia as an independent country, and therefore there are many unclear aspects. Apart from saying that Catalonian independence (well, he doesn't use that word) would not break its ties with Spain, he also says, for example, that Catalonia will stay in the European Union although Brussels has already said that they won't; that there would be no Catalan army because Catalonia would use the Spanish army or an European army :huh:... We don't even know which political system they'd like to be implemented in Catalonia!

And as I said before, the question they were planning to ask in the referendum was not something like "Would you like Catalonia to become an independent nation?" but "Would you like Catalonia to be a new state in the European Union?". The wording is ambiguous and no matter if people vote "yes" or "no", both answers could be used depending on political interests.

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